Datuon Wendy F.

BSE-III FILIPINO

Name: Wendy F. Datuon

Student Number: 18-00273
Subject: Special Education
Course: BSE-III
Major: Filipino
BPSU Balnga Campus

Reflection Paper About the Movie entitled: Iska

A life of a child with special needs is not easy, specially to the parents of the child. They
need the long understanding about the situation of her child. And this situation is not easy
because it gives you a lot of sacrifices to survive their situations. A situation of a child with
autism is difficult because when a child wants, for example a thing or food they don’t say it they
just pinch your body parts and look for the thing that they want. And if the child didn’t fulfill
their wants, they tantrums all day. When I watch the movie entitled ISKA I felt that so sad for
Iska because his sacrifices are not easy.

An employee at one of UP Diliman’s photocopying centers, tries to make ends meet by

taking on extra cleaning jobs in the weekend and walking several kilometers a day to save on
money.  She does this in order to provide for her autistic grandson, who was abandoned in her
care by her daughter. As if this was not enough, her good for nothing husband adds to her
heartaches and makes life even more unbearable and yet, this strong woman does her best to
endure and overcome for the sake of her beloved grandson.

For all intents and purposes, I believe ISKA was intended to shine the spotlight on
autism and the challenges of caring for a special needs child, especially when one is not
equipped with the tools to do so — financially and technically. The opening sequence of ISKA
was enough to establish what Iska had to go through on a daily basis. The simple task of
cleaning and changing the clothes of someone like Dongdong takes its toll on any person and
Iska’s extraordinary amount of love and patience for the child was the only reason that she goes
through the motions without feeling bitter and tired. Her genuine love for her grandson will
remind audiences of their own lola for sure.

Apart from the autistic grandson arc of Iska’s story, her tale does not seem original. Yet,
this is not a bad thing. It seems familiar because audiences are already aware that her
experiences are a reflection of what actually happens in the slums. Iska is the face of women
who have to work to provide for their families, women who are raped by their own husbands,
women who have partners who do not pull their weight in the relationship, women who have
accepted their lot in life, women who would endure everything for the sake of their families.

When I watch the movie, I cried because I see the sacrifices of Iska for her grandson.
Dongdong is an abandon child her mother Judy left her as well as their father. I feel the deeply
love of Iska for Dongdong. Iska’s patience is extraordinary because they didn’t attempt to hurt
Dongdong physically nor mentally. And they didn’t attempt to give Dongdong to the DSWD
but when they experience body pain she realize that Dongdong need a tender care so that she
decided to go to the agencies that gives care for Dongdong. The hyperrealistic film observes
how Iska balances household chores, taking care of Dongdong and working as a Xerox machine
operator in UP Diliman and as an occasional house cleaner in a professor’s (Ricky Rivero)
house. But at the heart of the film is Iska as a grandmother and her unconditional love for her
grandson, whom she is raising practically all by herself. A child that cannot even return her
affections, cocooned in his own world and shatters the air with his ear-piercing tantrums and
expressions of mirth.

The deeply meaning of the movie was to give lesson to the families who have children
with autism give extra care and extra ordinary love the child because their condition is not a
joke they suffer from this condition. And give therapies we have magna carta for those who
children with special needs. We have the program inclusion that helps the families for planning
for the best treatment of the children. It also gives an seminar to handle with care to the children
with special needs.

“Extra Ordinary Girl”

“Iska draws the resilience of a woman from a reality to reel” an extraordinary girl was
named Iska. She has husband and they call her Scum because it gives heartache to Iska. Scum
and Iska have grandchild named Judy and Judy has their Child with special needs or autism
named John Christian but her grandmother Iska preferred to call her DongDong. The struggle
of Iska starts when Judy left her child so that as a grandmother Iska gives extra ordinary love
and care to Dongdong even the situation is very hard.

The story of “Iska” takes us through the arduous life of a woman who has taken on the
responsibility to raise her grandchild. We are shown that Iska (played by Ruby Ruiz) tries to be
both a faithful wife and a noble mother. She is flawed, yet she holds strength. She is
constrained, yet she knows grit.

It’s easy to peg this upcoming film as one that’s just about unconditional love. But more
than its promise of warmth and kindness, the director said there are so many aspects in Iska’s
life that the audience can draw realizations from. He also shared he saw the University of the
Philippines, one of the film’s settings, as a microcosm of Philippine society that coalesces with
the life of a worker.
 “This is the type of film that doesn’t make me nervous, because I know I gave more of
myself than I thought I was capable of doing,” Boborol told alike. 

It’s a story of unconditional love. We always have this definition of what a mother
should be, but the story focuses on what really makes a mother—that being a mother entails the
giving of unconditional love to somebody that doesnʼt often have to be blood-relatives. It’s
giving your all despite it not being your responsibility or having limited resources.

Iska is a photocopy machine operator on weekdays; on weekends, she cleans the house
of a certain film professor. Her daughter is an unwed mother who gave birth to a child with
autism, but was undiagnosed. When Iska’s daughter found another partner, she left the child
with her. The movie shows how she balances being a mother to her grandchild, being a wife to
her husband, and being good employee to all those she works for that’s why I give the title for
my reaction extra ordinary girl because the sacrifices of Iska is not easy give care for his
grandchild and working hard for their needs for every day. Iska is amazing because not all
grandmother are like Iska.

I have nothing to say about being a good grandmother of Iska for her grandson. he gave
his whole -hearted love to it, he combined the work and care of his grandson together with his
wife who did nothing but be a woman and drank alcohol and went home drunk and went to
sleep. I can say that Iska is a role model and should emulate the sacrifice she gave for her
grandson. he was unable to hand over his grandson to the authorities because he did not want
to be away from them because he knew that no one would understand his grandson's condition.
the day came when he felt something else in his body so he realized that he had to entrust
Dongdong to the orphanage for sick children.